Me rausem ass belong him!

A gardener in Papua New Guinea would say this meaning he had pulled a plant’s roots out of the ground. It is German and English mixed with Malay syntax and appropriate here because I am going to focus on the resisting subject in The Penal Colony. This form of Pidgin (Tok Pisin) is a creolization of language, which is a form of resistance against dominant discourse where subjects struggle with the power of the state for control of their bodies. They create a new language to claim space for themselves.

In Kafka’s tale, the nameless characters are products of various power structures that repress individual will. They have no agency because their subjectivity is created by the state. All their actions demonstrate that they are Althusser’s concrete subjects. The state apparatus inscribes the law on their bodies. Just as a harrow cultivates the land, Kafka’s harrow is history subjecting the body to violence in the construction of culture.

However, throughout the story there are signs that the system is flawed and resistance to power is always present.

The Condemned Man

The first sign of resistance to the Old Commandant’s order is the Condemned Man’s insubordination. Rather than begging forgiveness for his misdemeanor, he grabs his superior and shouts, “Throw away that whip or I’ll eat you up.” This mimicry of the master’s aggression reflects the barbarism of the state and demonstrates the individual’s non-compliance with the law.  Later, the condemned man dares to bend over the glass of the harrow, and the fact that he is chained and then must be strapped on to the bed of the Apparatus is a clear indication of the individual’s resistance to coercion.

Once in the bed, the Condemned is overcome by nausea and throws up so that the stump of felt can no longer silence him. His vomit flows into the machine.

Later, he uses signs to communicate with the soldier with whom he makes friends. When he sees the officer in the Apparatus, he smiles as he realizes that he will get his revenge. Finally, he tries to leave the island with the Traveler. All of these actions point to an individual’s resistance to power.

The Apparatus

Kafka’s machine of torture is a reflection of the State’s inability to completely control all subjects. Thus, the machine only “seems to do its work uniformly.” It squeaks creating a disturbance that infuriates the Officer who sees that it is still “not working properly.” In fact, the officer unwittingly admits to the failure of the system when he calls the tortured “martyrs.” The transfiguration on their faces brings to mind saints on burning pyres who refuse to give up their faith and just before death experience a transfiguration that only confirms their convictions. The condemned in the penal colony resist even while their sentences are being inscribed down to the very core of their bodies.

The Officer, on the other hand, does not require straps and cannot use the felt stump as he willingly submits to his torture and death. There isn’t even the slightest hum when the Officer is in it, perhaps because he, like Pontius Pilate, cannot wash his hands of his guilt. However, the machine self-destructs because it is torturing one of its own docile subjects. Paradoxically, the state as oppressive power can only function when it is suppressing individual will. In other words, where there is “guilt beyond a doubt” resistance is inevitable. (The imploding machine reminds me of Isaac Asimov’s imploding robots, which are unable to deal with the changeable nature of morality because they lack free will)

The Traveller

The Traveler recognizes the inhumanity that the Apparatus represents. He cannot decipher the language of the diagrams, but he is horrified by the implication of what he sees. He refuses to support the Officer, and although his decision not to stop the machine from killing the Officer points to his own subjectivity cultivated by another oppressive system, he bites his lip and says nothing. Why does Kafka add this detail? The biting of his lip indicates that he is holding something back. He is not completely without a conscience. Something is bubbling just under the surface. The reader is disappointed in his pathetic behaviour, and when he prevents the Soldier and Condemned Man from leaving the island with him, he appears to be a very callous individual. However, I would argue that the glimmer of conscience that keeps threatening to make itself heard is Kafka’s acknowledgement of the resisting voice that we may choose to stifle but that is, nevertheless, always there.

If citizens are products of a culture that controls them, why the need for the Apparatus?

Where there is power there is resistance, which is an expression of individual will.

As my Irish grandfather said to his children when they were not allowed to speak Gaelic and had to use English in school, “Bastardize de language baiy!”

So they would ask, “Verarugoin and vatarudoin?”

 

 

 

Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka

 

The Penal Colony

 

Much of the theory (and one short story) that we have been reading in the past weeks in one way or another has the body at the center, or better yet at an invisible, or displaced center, of its theoretical propositions. (This week’s reading of a Kafka story, The Penal Colony, is not an exception.) Body can be viewed in a few different forms, i.e. social body, body of works, individual body, etc., although it is usually exemplified in the individual body of the subject. The body as being inseparable from language, I would propose the body as the general grounds of human inquiry and discussion. This may be perhaps because the body is where we feel, it is what decays on its own through time, it is what will bring us to our end (death), and therefore it is the most important surface on which to make a semantic inscription and with which to make organizational strategies before each one meets that end. The latter concept, ‘organizational strategy’, now suggests a political aspect. This organizational aspect, as Louis Althuser has shown (calling it infrastructure), is inseparable or cannot survive or exist without semantic inscription, or the assigning of meaning; in Althuser this area belongs to an upper lever called the superstructure, this is where politics, an intangible, resides. The body is therefore ground zero for any type of social formation or organization. This for some probably would be difficult to accept if a position outside of the material is not taken; meaning if one does not take a stance outside of just the actual individual’s body starting with his or her skin. The body as the center, ground zero, goes beyond actual inscriptions on the skin, perhaps the widespread modern use of the ‘tattoo’ might suggest otherwise, but that is not what I intend to discuss here.

In Kafka’s story The Penal Colony the body is, as I have already implied, the center, the nucleus holding the language together in its organized form. In this case although, I don’t believe the body is part of the main question, it is rather part of the answer to that question. The question is: where is justice made? (It is a vague question I know.) This of course leads to a discourse on justice; asking what justice is. In the text although, there seems to be a working definition of what justice is. Justice in the text is simply punishing the guilty and in regards to this the text works with the notion that everyone is guilty; the officer and old commandant certainly seem to think so; explicitly at least. The traveler, although, doesn’t think that way. He thinks an accused needs a due process before justice is made. In the end both actually think the same. I will explain. The whole point of the apparatus is to kill. There is absolutely no point in a machine with such intricacies of writing on the body if the condemned is still going to die. That would be useful if the condemned were to stay living. In the end the Traveler stays living and there is a reason for that. The old has given way to the new. The whole process of the spectacle is no longer necessary; it has achieved the logical outcome of making justice by writing on the body. This outcome is to have those inscriptions present in every living body. That is to say, one is still guilty, but messages like “Honour your superiors” or “Be just!” are, as the Officer says, experienced in the body. The Traveler is the immediate example of a controlled, disciplined, civil body. He leaves the penal colony, but even outside he is imprisoned, he is still in the penal colony because the inscriptions in his body control him, control his body; because he, like everyone else, is guilty. The due process he believes in is applying by force onto the body of the condemned, i.e. fines (you have to work to pay the fine, right?), confinement, maybe death penalty, etc., bodily inscriptions which he or she did not accept or relieved themselves of them; so it actually is a reapplying of the inscriptions. Either way, justice has been made on his body. The ‘peculiar apparatus’ is the puppeteer.

Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka

 

The Penal Colony

 

Much of the theory (and one short story) that we have been reading in the past weeks in one way or another has the body at the center, or better yet at an invisible, or displaced center, of its theoretical propositions. (This week’s reading of a Kafka story, The Penal Colony, is not an exception.) Body can be viewed in a few different forms, i.e. social body, body of works, individual body, etc., although it is usually exemplified in the individual body of the subject. The body as being inseparable from language, I would propose the body as the general grounds of human inquiry and discussion. This may be perhaps because the body is where we feel, it is what decays on its own through time, it is what will bring us to our end (death), and therefore it is the most important surface on which to make a semantic inscription and with which to make organizational strategies before each one meets that end. The latter concept, ‘organizational strategy’, now suggests a political aspect. This organizational aspect, as Louis Althuser has shown (calling it infrastructure), is inseparable or cannot survive or exist without semantic inscription, or the assigning of meaning; in Althuser this area belongs to an upper lever called the superstructure, this is where politics, an intangible, resides. The body is therefore ground zero for any type of social formation or organization. This for some probably would be difficult to accept if a position outside of the material is not taken; meaning if one does not take a stance outside of just the actual individual’s body starting with his or her skin. The body as the center, ground zero, goes beyond actual inscriptions on the skin, perhaps the widespread modern use of the ‘tattoo’ might suggest otherwise, but that is not what I intend to discuss here.

In Kafka’s story The Penal Colony the body is, as I have already implied, the center, the nucleus holding the language together in its organized form. In this case although, I don’t believe the body is part of the main question, it is rather part of the answer to that question. The question is: where is justice made? (It is a vague question I know.) This of course leads to a discourse on justice; asking what justice is. In the text although, there seems to be a working definition of what justice is. Justice in the text is simply punishing the guilty and in regards to this the text works with the notion that everyone is guilty; the officer and old commandant certainly seem to think so; explicitly at least. The traveler, although, doesn’t think that way. He thinks an accused needs a due process before justice is made. In the end both actually think the same. I will explain. The whole point of the apparatus is to kill. There is absolutely no point in a machine with such intricacies of writing on the body if the condemned is still going to die. That would be useful if the condemned were to stay living. In the end the Traveler stays living and there is a reason for that. The old has given way to the new. The whole process of the spectacle is no longer necessary; it has achieved the logical outcome of making justice by writing on the body. This outcome is to have those inscriptions present in every living body. That is to say, one is still guilty, but messages like “Honour your superiors” or “Be just!” are, as the Officer says, experienced in the body. The Traveler is the immediate example of a controlled, disciplined, civil body. He leaves the penal colony, but even outside he is imprisoned, he is still in the penal colony because the inscriptions in his body control him, control his body; because he, like everyone else, is guilty. The due process he believes in is applying by force onto the body of the condemned, i.e. fines (you have to work to pay the fine, right?), confinement, maybe death penalty, etc., bodily inscriptions which he or she did not accept or relieved themselves of them; so it actually is a reapplying of the inscriptions. Either way, justice has been made on his body. The ‘peculiar apparatus’ is the puppeteer.

In the Penal Colony

The first time I read In the Penal Colony was almost four years ago and my mind completely focused on the ethical and moral aspects in it. This time around I was able to make a broader reading.

What I found most interesting about the story was the idea of justice by which this particular penal system worked. To us a system where a person is determined guilty without a trial and condemned to death through torture without him even knowing what his crime was seems (and probably is) completely barbaric and unjust. However, for some reason the officer could not see what was wrong with it, he believed in the complete power of the system over the common people and moreover in its superiority over the common people, I think that is why he thought there wasn’t really a need for a trial because “the system knows better”, it can’t be wrong. He believed in it so much that when he found himself and his machine being accused by the explorer he didn’t even hesitate on applying the system to himself and paying his crime like any other person would inside the colony.

This got me to thinking, do we believe in our system as blindly as the officer does? Is that why we feel so shocked (torture aside) by what happens at Kafka’s penal colony? Because in the end our “penal machine” doesn’t work as smoothly either and some may argue that it is designed not so much to protect people as to protect the state from any kind threat to its stability. Moreover, it is also through the use of force and violence that we are made to fit into its mechanism. Maybe this is exactly what Kafka is criticizing. How just is our system really? How can one determine what is just and what is not?

On a last note, I must say I was very intrigued by the ending of the story when the explorer practically escapes the island leaving the soldier and the condemned man behind. It seems like in the end he sympathized with the officer and felt like the barbaric ones were the rest of the colony. Perhaps he was just running away from it all, without even attempting to help the people inside the island. It seems to me like a criticism to the international community. I don’t know I think this text is so rich that it gives room to every kind reading and interpretation. It will be an interesting seminar session for sure.

 

In the Penal Colony

The first time I read In the Penal Colony was almost four years ago and my mind completely focused on the ethical and moral aspects in it. This time around I was able to make a broader reading.

What I found most interesting about the story was the idea of justice by which this particular penal system worked. To us a system where a person is determined guilty without a trial and condemned to death through torture without him even knowing what his crime was seems (and probably is) completely barbaric and unjust. However, for some reason the officer could not see what was wrong with it, he believed in the complete power of the system over the common people and moreover in its superiority over the common people, I think that is why he thought there wasn’t really a need for a trial because “the system knows better”, it can’t be wrong. He believed in it so much that when he found himself and his machine being accused by the explorer he didn’t even hesitate on applying the system to himself and paying his crime like any other person would inside the colony.

This got me to thinking, do we believe in our system as blindly as the officer does? Is that why we feel so shocked (torture aside) by what happens at Kafka’s penal colony? Because in the end our “penal machine” doesn’t work as smoothly either and some may argue that it is designed not so much to protect people as to protect the state from any kind threat to its stability. Moreover, it is also through the use of force and violence that we are made to fit into its mechanism. Maybe this is exactly what Kafka is criticizing. How just is our system really? How can one determine what is just and what is not?

On a last note, I must say I was very intrigued by the ending of the story when the explorer practically escapes the island leaving the soldier and the condemned man behind. It seems like in the end he sympathized with the officer and felt like the barbaric ones were the rest of the colony. Perhaps he was just running away from it all, without even attempting to help the people inside the island. It seems to me like a criticism to the international community. I don’t know I think this text is so rich that it gives room to every kind reading and interpretation. It will be an interesting seminar session for sure.

 

Categories
Kafka

My impressions on “In the Penal Colony” by Kafka

In 《In the Penal Colony》, a Western traveler was invited by a commandant to inspect an execution of a criminal on an island and a succession of events happened. First of all, we can notice that the Officer was so proud of the “artistic” apparatus and he introduced and explained eagerly the most comprehensive process of judicial operation to the Traveler. There were lots of details describing the apparatus in motion, not that bloody but it was really a nauseating inhumanity. The Officer was the single advocate and defender, but he lacked the Old Commandant’s power. He knew the apparatus’ objections and he realized the Traveler would be dissatisfied with the execution, but he still tried to persuade the Traveler to support him. The Traveler, who came from the Europe with an open cultural ideology could accept different ideologies, but was incapable of approving historical retrogression. However, as a foreigner, an outsider, the Traveler prefer to stay silent with an ambivalence in attitude toward this death penalty until the Officer begged him to be his partner, the Traveler resolutely opposed the Officer’s suggestions. He showed his respect, understanding and sympathy to the Officer, and he didn’t intervene in the process when the Officer decided to put himself to torture. The Soldier and the Condemned Man were the symbol of the masses in that epoch—who gathered together to watch the execution as a grand and spectacular occasion. The Condemned Man didn’t even know he had been condemned or sentenced, and he had no right to defend himself, which is regarded by the Officer as meaningless. When the inscription was made on his body, he was suffering, but later, he enjoyed the rice buddings with the Soldier. It’s a transformation in attitude from resistant passively to insensitive. Without the Traveler, the death penalty would have been executed successfully as usual, nothing would change, why the “passer-by” is so important in this story? Kafka wrote this character as a stranger out of the social structure and constraint, it’s a rescue altering the criticized judicial systems. To escape the situation as a bystander, it’s also a personal thought of Kafka.

In this novel, we can find many literal elements, like mystical transformations, alienation, physical cruelty. Besides, lots of implied meanings are hidden in this story. First of all, I’ll like to talk about the relation between the technology and the human being. This apparatus was designed by the Old Commandant, who controlled the organization of the entire penal colony and had the absolute power of life and death over millions. Like the phrase said in a passage, the Old Commandant is the combination of soldier, judge, engineer, chemist and draftsman. The Old Commandant took the machine as an achievement—a combination of technologic breakthrough and aesthetic principles, it was endowed without any emotion, it’s an sternly indifferent machine rather than a cruel machine. So how can we deal with the relation between the technology and the humanity? Technological advancements strength human being’s force, but also accelerate the alienation between them, people are getting indifferent. Secondly, Kafka implied different political strategies through the description of two commandants. The Old Commandant advocated the hegemonism—the concentration of power, but the Present Commandant, he didn’t like the process of execution invented by the Old Commandant and he had a bad relationship with the Officer, he didn’t show up, but he invited the Traveler to represent him, to help him achieve the goal of consolidating the new power. He might have human opinions and supported a more civilized judicial system, but he didn’t take a firm hand to forbid the method of execution, he wanted to cripple and disorganize the old power and forces from the viewpoint of political consideration. Politicians are always tricky. Finally, another noticeable plot—the obstinate attitude and compromise of the Officer. The Officer eventually chose to end his life by experiencing the operation of apparatus, I believe he must had a fierce inward struggle for ages, then the Traveler made him clear-minded, his behaviors stir up our inmost feelings, his ultimate result even made him heroic. This successful character and his unstable thoughts were created as a representation of those anxious people who were living in the period of cultural transition.

In addition, there are other things for us to ponder, like the death, the penalty, the rescue, the wisdom and the conspiracy, etc.. Kafka left us lots of enigmas to probe, everyone may have their own understanding and choice in different historic periods, this is one of the charms of Kafka’s works as well.

 

“In the Penal Colony” – Kafka

My first thought upon reading this story: “this story is just messed”. Kafka’s depiction of the penal colony is extremely disturbing and troubling. I am really unsure how to interpret its meaning as the story seems to take me in all different directions. Of course, one could analyze it in so many different ways, or simply, examine the story for what it is: a disturbing tale of suffering and torture. One particular theme that is difficult to ignore is that of justice and punishment. The penal colony seems to operate on a very rigid system of punishment that is best captured by the officer’s infamous quote: “Guilt is never to be doubted”. In other words, those who are accused of a crime should not be given the opportunity to defend themselves but instead, are guilty without question. The accuser is always right whereas the accused is always wrong. This seemingly unjust process of condemnation is then followed by a brutal and torturous massacre of the condemned. The idea is to use a machine or apparatus that slowly rotates the prisoner’s body and cuts it repeatedly with numerous needles in aims of inscribing the commandment that the prisoner is supposedly guilty of violating. This is meant to teach the prisoner a lesson and to enlighten him on what commandment he has violated. In the case of the condemned man in the story, it was: “Honour your superiors”.

Aside from the fact that this punishment process seems barbaric and only seen in movies such as “SAW” and the “Human Centipede” (by the way, trailer is very disturbing; refrain from watching), what is more interesting to me is the perceptions of the explorer and the officer regarding this execution procedure. On the one hand, the explorer finds it to be unjust and extreme. On the other hand, the officer lauds it greatly, seeing it as the greatest form of justice possible. Can there really exist such a large divergence in one’s point of view about justice? Evidently, it seems almost natural to believe that the officer is an insane and sadistic psycho who has clearly been surrounded by prisoners far too long. His perception of justice seems to be completely distorted, but in a way, understandably so, since he has been in the penal colony for almost all his life. This explains his belief that guilt can never be doubted in that everyone in the penal colony is guilty of something. The officer seems to have developed a very jaded view of humanity given his incessant contact with prisoners and in a way, feels obliged to fulfill a moral duty (this ironically being in a very brutal and inhumane way). He relishes completely in the power of being judge of the colony and of being able to bring justice by executing prisoners with the apparatus. Maybe he is trying to make them feel (no pun intended) how guilty and how awful they truly are as human beings. We can try and justify what the officer could have been thinking or we can simply read him as someone who is insane and just pure sick. He finds pleasure in the pain of others and wants to see them suffer and pay. But since the officer views everyone as being guilty, we could even read this story from a religious point of view (which I will not get into details here) in the sense that most religions share this same belief. Maybe he viewed the old Commandant as God and himself as a prophet who is fulfilling God’s wish of punishing the sins of humanity. Oh that’s right, I said I wouldn’t talk about that here, maybe in class!

I think it’s also necessary to consider the explorer in all of this. Although he is against the officer’s severe way of punishment, one cannot help but notice his passivity. One can compare him to the reader of the story since he doesn’t seem to have much influence on the plot. He is simply there to watch the entire scene unfold. It is even mentioned in the story that the explorer did not care much about the apparatus and simply observed the prisoner with indifference. It is important to note that the explorer is a Western investigator who is sent out to study criminal procedures in all different parts of the world. It is possible that he is emotionally detached by the officer’s disturbing beliefs given that he has already been subjected to all kinds of cruelty. He doesn’t really seem to be sympathetic to the prisoner despite his disagreement with the cruel punishment. It is even mentioned in the text that the judicial procedure had not “satisfied” him. This is quite mild in terms of emotion considering the extent of the brutality of this procedure. Why would the explorer be “touched” by the officer’s severe conviction rather than be disturbed by this? In fact, the only time the explorer is “greatly troubled” is when the machine breaks down and slaughters the officer. This is definitely difficult to grasp since there seems to be an ambiguity in the explorer’s stance about the whole situation.

This brings me to the ending. What are we supposed to make of it? The explorer decides to leave the colony in a boat, leaving the soldier and condemned man behind. I guess the officer’s brutal death must have really got to him so he immediately wanted to leave. But how is it that the details of the nature of the execution did not trouble him as much? This is difficult to grasp. Maybe he was just so disturbed by the end that it was all too much for him to handle. After the officer’s death, the explorer goes with the soldier and the condemned man to the teahouse in the colony where the old Commandant is buried. There, they see inscribed on his grave a prediction that he will rise again. It’s interesting here that only the explorer doesn’t find this humorous, almost as if he was finally scared of the power of this perverted system of justice. This could perhaps explain his prior indifference, simply regarding the officer’s belief as something he had already seen before. There is still something unsettling between the humour and the horror in that final scene at the old Commandant’s grave. Could this be a critique of society that tortures and controls its people both physically and psychologically? It definitely seems pertinent today. All in all, this story leaves room for a plethora of interpretations. I think this was part of Kafka’s intentions; we are forced to question the significance of his story on so many different levels and at many times we wonder: what does that mean? Moral of the story – there is definitely more questions than answers. This should however stimulate an interesting discussion next week!

 

Lacan

Lacan

 

When reading Lacan I really have a hard time following his ideas. Lacan uses the Idea of the signifier and the signified. He also talks about the Bar that divides the signifier from the signified and he believes that S over s should really be S/s beside s, because the signified also has power and he gives the example of two bathroom doors which are the same until you see the sign for ladies and for gentleman. He represents the power these signified have when he tell the anecdote of two children in a train station where both see the sign at the

train station and they related to bathroom door signs they say
“”look’ says the brother, “we’re at Ladies”; “Idiot! Replies his sister,

“can’t you see we’re at Gentleman.””(450) So here he shows how the signified has power like the signifier and one should not be over another, but equally.

He later tries to explain it with using bedded chains interlocked with one another. And this reminded me of DNA how proteins become DNA which becomes genes and then they are chromosomes, it is a complex interconnected system where one thing is not more important than the other like the signifier and the signified.

Lacan

Lacan

 

When reading Lacan I really have a hard time following his ideas. Lacan uses the Idea of the signifier and the signified. He also talks about the Bar that divides the signifier from the signified and he believes that S over s should really be S/s beside s, because the signified also has power and he gives the example of two bathroom doors which are the same until you see the sign for ladies and for gentleman. He represents the power these signified have when he tell the anecdote of two children in a train station where both see the sign at the

train station and they related to bathroom door signs they say
“”look’ says the brother, “we’re at Ladies”; “Idiot! Replies his sister,

“can’t you see we’re at Gentleman.””(450) So here he shows how the signified has power like the signifier and one should not be over another, but equally.

He later tries to explain it with using bedded chains interlocked with one another. And this reminded me of DNA how proteins become DNA which becomes genes and then they are chromosomes, it is a complex interconnected system where one thing is not more important than the other like the signifier and the signified.

Sigmund Freud

Hi everyone I know this is late but here my reading on Freud!

When I first saw that we had to read Freud I thought that it was Ironic that after 4 years of psychology I never really read something written by Freud. As I started to read I had a hard removing myself from the negative view of Freud that comes from psychology. I thought it was funny that is psyc. You always joke that Freud was high on cocaine when he came up with so many theories, and in the text he talks about his contribution to the study of cocaine and its pain numbing properties.  In general what stood out to me the most from his dream interpretation is the idea of condensation. He believes that there is a big difference from the “manifest content” of a dream and the “dream thought” and this difference is due to condensation. I believe this idea is interesting in literature because there is a big difference in what we read and what the author is trying to say. For example in the story we read in class MAUPASSANT, you  might just see it as simple story but as you look into the context and the background of the writer you do move into deeper and more profound interpretation. I do think though that Freud takes it to far, the problem with this is that you will start to make connections that are not really there. When Freud talks about the woman who dreams with beetles and concludes that it all has to do with her sexual desires towards her husband he leaves out the part of the daughter who use to kill beetles when she was little. So he really only looks at what supports his own theses and ignores all the rest. This can also happen to us when reading we might just look for an interpretation we like but not necessarily what the author is trying to interpret.

In conclusion I think that we should not have such a negative view of Fred because he was a thinker and his ideas have helped many fields come up with legitimate theories especially in psychology.

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